1. Did you have pets or siblings as a child? Do you have pets or children at home now? If so, tell us more about them.
I have 2 siblings. We grew up with a dog and cat. My dad raised rabbits for a while and raised AKC labs later on.
My husband and I have 4 kids and 2 dogs. Our kids are 4, 6, 9 and 11. Our dogs are both Beagle/terrier mixes but unrelated to each other. They are 2.5 years old and 4.5 months old.
2 . When did you first own a pet that you were pretty much responsible for? What was the pet and how did you come to own it? What age were you when you became a mommy for the first time? How many pets and children have you had as an adult?
The first pet that I was actually responsible for was a kitten I adopted when I was in my first apartment. I realized she needed too much time and attention so I gave her to someone else a few days after I got her.
I became a mommy at age 28.
We have 4 kids and 2 dogs right now. The 2 dogs are the only pets we've had since getting married and having kids.
3. What is your favorite type of pet? Have your pets been rescued? Found? Purchased? Purebred or Heinz 57? Are your children biological or adopted?
I love dogs and would love a horse! I really just love animals in general although some more than others.. I'm not really a cat person. We had purebreed AKC labs growing up but our dogs now are mixed and we got them for free from connections on Facebook.
All my kids are my biological children. I would love to adopt two more though! My husband is not quite convinced though haha!
4. If you have children, did you deliver them naturally or with pain meds or by C-section? Have you ever helped a pet have babies? If you adopted a baby, how old was it when you brought it home?
I have watched my some of our pets (growing up) give birth but never helped them.
I was induced early with all 4 of my kids. No C-sections.
5. Tell us about pets you have had as babies. Have you raised a litter from birth? Have you had to bottle feed an animal? Did you breast feed or bottle feed or pump for your human babies?
I've helped raise several litters of rabbits and puppies from birth. I don't remember bottle feeding any until we tried to bottle feed our now 4 month old Beagle mix when we first got her and she was sickly. She was just 4 weeks when we got her but wouldn't really take a bottle.
I did cuddle almost an entire litter of tiny lab puppies, one by one, and watched as several died from parvo in my arms. Parvo got to this one litter we had and my dad couldn't save them. :( This was probably almost 20 years ago.
I breast fed and bottle fed my kids.
6. Have you potty trained animals or babies? If both, which was harder? Did you use diapers with your pets? Cloth diapers or disposable diapers with your babies?
Believe it or not we're still working on fully training our 2 year old Beagle and, obviously, our 4 month old Beagle too. Potty training animals is WAY harder, in my opinion.
I potty trained my sister when I was about 5 years old and helped potty train several younger cousins and kids in the daycare I worked at. With my own kids I've waited until their third birthday and they pretty much trained themselves within a few days. L was 3.5 but the older ones were easily trained the week of their third birthday.
Disposable diapers for all my babies! Less stress and less mess was my theory there haha!
7. Taken pet training classes with your fur babies or prenatal and parenting classes for your human babies? Homeschool or public school or private school for your children?
Our dogs desperately need training classes but we haven't taken them to one yet. We didn't go to any prenatal classes or parenting classes.
My kids have been in public until now except for last year when I homeschooled J. I plan to homeschool all 4 kids this fall and continue on after that.
8. How did you determine names for your pets? What is the significance of your children’s names? If you could pick another name for yourself, would you? What would it be?
Our current boy dog is named Eli. That was the boy name I had picked out for L if she had been a boy. C didn't get a brother so I took him to Build-A-Bear to pick out a stuffed animal. He chose a stuffed Beagle that he named Eli and after that he always wanted a real dog named Eli. When we got our first dog it just happened to be a Beagle like his Build-A-Bear (we almost got a lab the day before) and he decided he still wanted to name him Eli. Roxie is our little girl dog. I always thought it was a cute name and have wanted a girl dog named Roxie the past few years. J loves the name too and together we decided to name her Roxie. We also picked out 2 middle names for her since my girls all have 2 middle names haha! If you can't tell I'm obsessed with names.
My kids' all have significant names but I don't share them on my blog. You may catch their first names in my Instagram stories occasionally but that's it. I will say my son shares a middle name with my husband. Two of my girls' middle names mean "God Is My Strength" and "Devoted To God" and one of L's middle names is "Grace" for the grace of God.
Growing up I never liked my first name. I found it boring then and still find it boring now. I started liking it better after I started learning Spanish and a lot of my friends and family often used a Spanish version of my name which I like a lot better. Then I married my husband and his niece has that same Spanish version of my name as her first name so no one really used it for me anymore although we rarely see his niece and she lives far away. Now I really dislike my first name, especially on Facebook, because it is used in every other meme it seems and people joke about it. (Can you figure out what it is? Haha!) I'm tempted to use a different name on my personal FB account. I'm not sure what I rename myself if I could. There are so many names I love it would be hard to choose.
9. Ever traveled with your pets? If so, how and when? If you have children, did you travel with them as babies? Did you use daycare for your pets or children? Play dates? Doggie parks? Do you take your pets to stores and restaurants with you? Your children??
We have never traveled with our pets. I think they would love a trip to the mountains, a day out hiking or camping though!
I wish we could afford a regular daycare for our dogs. There is an awesome on in our town. Eli went one time when we had a free pass and he had a great time! I know a lot of people use them every day though. We board our dogs when we go our of town. Well, we've boarded Eli several times. Roxie has been too young so she stayed with friends the last two times we went out of town. She's old enough to board now so we'll board her next time.
We've taken Eli to the dog park once or twice and he had fun meeting other dogs but we've never taken him on an official playdate with another dog.
We would never take our pets to a resturant.. I can't even imagine haha!! We took Eli to a store once..the day we got him we had to run into WalMart and Pets Mart. S sat in the cart and held him but that's the only time he's been to a store that I can think of.
Yes, of course we take our kids to resturants and stores.
10. What is one lesson you have learned or one take away from being a pet owner and/or parent?
As a pet owner I've learned they need to be potty trained right away and need an obedience class! They're both crazy and I/we obviously don't know how to properly train them.
As a parent I've learned so much through the years.
No comments:
Post a Comment